Brown attacks EU contract bias

GORDON Brown will today challenge France and Germany to end the market-rigging which prevents British businesses from winning lucrative European Union contracts.

UK firms complain they are being unfairly denied a share of a public contracts market worth £1,000bn a year.

Under single market rules, British companies should be able to compete on equal terms with European companies when they bid for public contracts in any of the EU's 24 other member states.

But the EU's most influential members, particularly France, Germany, Spain and Italy, routinely flout Brussels regulations to ensure their own firms get preferential treatment.

After a year-long inquiry, Alan Wood, chief executive of Siemens, has produced a report on how single market legislation from Brussels was applied across the EU. It painted a picture of British bidders left helpless in mainland Europe by cynical ploys to favour local firms.

These included breaking contracts down into smaller jobs to escape EU competition law. A road surfacing deal was split in two - with both jobs being 'won' by the same local firm.

Another scam was to ask that bids for a contract be completed in a regional dialect.

At the monthly meeting of EU finance ministers, Brown will present his counterparts with a copy of the report.

He told the Enterprising Britain policy summit in London yesterday: 'This report shows clearly there is widespread preference for domestic industries in many parts of Europe.

'Europe needs to do more to create a genuine single market in public procurement...so that British manufacturers and British workers do not lose out.'